Does anyone have have any answers to some of these questions??
By Jessie Halladay and Reid Cherner, USA TODAY
LOUISVILLE — Just hours before the Kentucky Derby, trainer Larry Jones got up early with his filly Eight Belles and took her to the track for a ride before the big race.
This was supposed to be a day of tempting history for Jones and Eight Belles.
They were taking on 19 colts and trying to make Eight Belles the fourth filly, and the first since Winning Colors in 1988, to win the "Run for the Roses."
This was to be a day of celebration for owner Rick Porter and his entourage no matter where she finished. She was the first filly to enter the Derby since 1999.
Now there will be a necropsy and then cremation.
It was a day that held such promise.
And a day on which the racing industry should have been celebrating a legitimate Triple Crown contender in Big Brown.
Not an afternoon to explain how, for the second time in two years, tragedy befell their sport.
The day was not supposed to end in death of another great racehorse.
Perhaps if the wounds of losing Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro were not so fresh there would not be this feeling of "Here we go again." Perhaps the shock would not have been so severe.
Eerily, Barbaro's trainer, Michael Matz, saw another one of his horses, Chelokee, injured Friday at Churchill Downs with the same injury as Barbaro, a broken lower leg.
Just when the industry needed good news, officials will have to explain why this happened again.
There will be questions with few answers.
•Should horses run this young?
•Is a 20-horse field too filled with danger?
•Should fillies be running against males?
•Does medication play any role in this?
•Are dirt surfaces, such as those at each Triple Crown track, more dangerous than grass or the new synthetic surfaces?
•Has breeding caused a weakening of the talent pool?
Are any Barnmice members involved with Thoroughbreds? Are any of the above questions being addressed in the racing industry?